


The Children's Hour

by GwendolynGrace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hunt in an unexpected place causes Dean to display skills neither he nor Sam thought he possessed....</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Children's Hour

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a plot bunny by Musesfool and was written for her birthday.

"Sammy."

"Dean...."

"But Sammy--"

"Dean, c'mon--"

"Serious, Sam. This is the dumbest idea _ever_."

"It'll be fine, Dean, jeez. They're what--two feet tall? Not even? How hard can it be?" He doesn't mention that this was Dean's hookup's idea to get them in during the day.

"I dunno, man," Dean insists. "You don't remember what you were like at four. And five." He sizes up Sam with a look of pain. "Heck, you're still a pain in the ass."

"Dude. They're preschoolers. Even you can handle going through the ABC's."

~*~

Sam chokes back a gag reflex at the overpowering smell of paste, Crayola, and Magic Marker. The primary colors on every surface don't help him keep breakfast down, either. There's not a single adult-sized chair in the room, except for the rocker over in "Story Corner."

"Kids!" Janine Ebersol, the teacher whom Dean found a couple nights ago, the only one willing to talk about the disturbances, announces from in between them. "We have two guest teachers today. Everyone say good morning to Mr. Dean and Mr., um...." Janine looks at Sam in an apologetic state.

"Sammy," he stammers. "I mean, Sam." On her other side, Dean snorts with glee.

"Guess you really can relive your childhood," Dean whispers around Janine's back, under the class's cheery, "Good _morning_ , Mr. Sammy. Good morning, Mr. Dean!"

"That just sounds dirty," Dean continues under his breath. He winks at Janine.

"Dude, focus," Sam growls.

"Right. Okay." Janine sets up half of the class with an art project and the other half goes over to a rug with some toys on it. Dean cases the room while the toddlers run around them. "I'll stake out the playplace--you keep your eye on Story Corner. Books are your thing, after all."

They know that the ghost has a penchant for disturbing quiet times: throwing books while the teachers try to read to the kids; tipping over easels when no one is nearby; often even pulling the pillows out from children's tender heads in the middle of nap time. Ghosts in themselves were bad enough, but any restless spirit that targeted preschoolers deserved its bones burnt to a crisp, extra salty. Sam wants to get this over with before anyone really gets hurt.

Sam tries to fold his legs under one of the round tables to see what the kids are painting. His gets down to the floor, but as he scoots toward the table, his knee bangs into the table top.

"Ow! Jeez, ow!"

He straightens his leg by reflex, rubbing the knee. As he kicks, he hits the table from underneath and tips it up. The cups of water and paint fall over. "Oh...son of a--" he cuts himself off, springing forward to rescue the cups, but it's too late.

"Mr. Sammy!" Janine cries out, appalled. Several kids start crying because their laps are full of water, or because their paintings are now running with streaks of muddy brown and green.

"Sorry!" Sam says in general. "I'll get paper towels." He separates himself from the table. The kids cry harder once he towers above them.

He runs to the sink and pulls the roll of towels off the little stand. His knee really hurts. The table is hard, and he hit his knee right on the spot that would be his funny bone, if it had been his elbow.

He comes back with the towels and starts trying to mop up the mess. A little girl with snot crusted on her upper lip stares at him.

"You're big."

"Yeah," Sam says.

" _Really_ big."

"Yeah." He tries to wipe her hands off. She flinches away.

"Are you a giant?"

"No." He reaches for her again.

She whips her hand away and shrieks. "No! No! I don't wanna! Miss Janine!"

Sam backs off, bewildered. Janine shifts her attention from the two boys she has been drying off.

"Katie, what on earth? What is it, sweetheart?"

"Don' wanna go be giant food!" She keeps babbling, but Sam can't understand her anymore. Sam knows his mouth and eyes are wide open, but he can't stop himself from gaping. Between the sobbing and the supersonic screech, she might as well be speaking dolphin.

Janine can somehow understand her, though. "Honey, he's not a giant," she assures her. She frowns at him anyway, as if it's his fault she's so upset.

"You know what?" Sam says quickly. "I'll just help these guys instead--"

But Katie's rant has alerted the rest of the art class and soon all the kids are pointing at him and screaming. "Giant!"

"He tried to kill Jack!"

"He eats little kids!"

"He's gonna take us to his giant wife and they'll grind us up for bread!"

"I'll just...see how Dean's doing," Sam says in defeat.

He wanders over to where Dean is lying flat on his stomach with an array of Legos. He doesn't want to get this group all upset, so he perches on a triangular table nearby.

"Jamie, here, gimme that fire truck," Dean says. A little boy hands him a new Lego set, one of the ones that comes practically already assembled. Dean places the fire truck carefully on a strip between a garage playset and a hospital. "Okay. So this is the city, right?" He reaches out for the Fisher-Price bus. "Hey, Charlotte, sweetie, don't eat the toy horses. They taste like crap. Tell you what," he continues, swinging his legs around to sit gracefully, "You can be Animal Control. See the little barn over there? I want you to find all the animals and put 'em over on the farm."

"Like Wilbur's barn?" Charlotte asks.

"Yeah, just like Wilbur's barn," Dean says, proud of her.

"Even Templeton?" The question's tentative, even fearful.

Dean hesitates. "Nah, you don't have to put Templeton in there," he tells her. "I don't like rats, either."

"Okay." She gives him a nod and crawls over to the barn.

"Now...we need a place for the people to take shelter when the dinosaurs attack...Ooh, Brady, that castle will do it. Bring that over here, man...."

"Mr. Dean? Will you read to us at storytime?"

For the first time since Sam came over, Dean's grin falters. "Uh...Mr. Sammy's your guy for reading," he smirks.

"No, we want you!" Charlotte says, rushing over to land on Dean's lap. He lets her bowl him over with an "Oof!" and tumbles her off to one side. She grabs his arm; he playfully tries to shake her off...but not too hard, Sam sees. Soon Brady grabs his other arm, and Jamie gets his leg, and a fourth kid hugs him around the chest. Combined, they wrestle him to the mat.

"Okay, okay...I'll read to you. Later," Dean agrees. They let him up. As he sits straight up, he winks at Sam.

"I see you've got everything under control, Mr. Dean," Sam teases.

"Mr. Sammy's going to...check the cubbyholes for EMF," Dean says pointedly. Sam nods; it's better than waiting around.

"What's EMF?" Brady asks as Sam rises.

On his way out of the room, Sam hears Dean tell his disciples that EMF stands for "Elephants, Monsters, and Fat-Bottomed Girls."

~*~

There's no EMF in the hallway, the cubbyholes, or even the bathrooms, but there's a cold spot near the door to the boiler room. The needle jumps. Sam follows the trail of his own frosted breath to a section of the basement with a paneled wall. Sam taps on the paneling; it's hollow, and built out like it's concealing something. He rips away the panels. Behind them is the body of a little boy. He must have been wedged in by someone who didn't want him to be found. Sam bites back the rise of bile in his throat. It's not from odor; the body has been here long enough that it doesn't even smell very bad anymore. Something altogether different is making his gorge rise. He salts the little corpse, but decides to call in an anonymous tip once they're safely away. The salt should contain the spirit; justice should enable it to move on, but catching human perverts is not their job. Even if Sam would like to find the guy and use him for target practice.

He returns to the classroom. Somehow, his amusement overcomes his surprise at the sight of Dean, cross-legged on the floor of the rug, reading to twenty little kids. Dean conscientiously turns the book around after reading each page to show them the picture. His face is as open and honest as the children's, and he shows the patience with them that Sam remembers from countless lessons, countless hours spent entertaining and educating him while they were alone or in the back of the car.

"Did the little duck really turn into a swan?" one of the kids asks.

"No," Dean says with a smile and a wink. "See, he was really a swan baby the whole time, so when he grew up--" Dean looks up and sees Sam where he's leaning on a bookcase. Sam feels his cheeks redden. He's not sure if he's embarrassed that Dean caught him watching such a tender scene, or if he's embarrassed _for_ Dean being observed in a position he would surely characterize as "vulnerable." Maybe both.

Sam tilts his head toward the hallway, turns the awkward moment into a signal: We're done; we need to talk. Whatever. Dean nods.

"He grew up into what he always was, right from the beginning," Dean finishes. Then he smiles right at Sam. Sam looks away. That's the smile of Dean's that cuts Sam the deepest, the smile with a little sadness mixed into it. It makes Sam want to turn back the clock. It makes him want to repay Dean for all the ways he managed to make Sam's youth as normal as Dean's was FUBAR. Not for the first time, Sam wonders what Dean would have been like--what he would have done with his life--if he hadn't had to raise his little brother and look after their father too, half the time.

Dean puts the book down and slaps his thighs to change the mood. "Well, kids, I gotta go now--"

He can't say any more because the kids start to cry and scream. It's the opposite of the scene they made when Sam bumped the table (and yeah, he's gonna need to pop a couple tabs of Ranger Candy later). It's the crying that says, "Don't leave," that names Dean one of their tribe. Sam can't help laughing. Trust Dean to fit in with five-year-olds.

" _Please_ , Miss Janine," one of the kids begs. "Please let Mr. Dean stay."

Janine comes over to mediate. "That's really up to Mr. Dean, I guess," she concludes. She looks at Sam with a couple questions written on her face, including, _Where have you been?_ and probably, judging by the dust on his clothes, _What have you been doing?_

Sam smiles sheepishly and says, "Sorry, but we really do have to get going."

Dean gets to his knees, but a bunch of kids dogpile on him for hugs and he can't get up any further. He gives in graciously and lets them embrace him.

"Wait!" one little boy calls after he's hugged everyone (some twice) and is back on his feet at the edge of the Story Corner, in line with Sam. "Before you go, will you say the alphabet the cool way, one more time?"

Dean grins. Janine cocks an eyebrow at him. "The cool way?" she queries.

Sam can't blame her. She knows Dean just well enough for her suspicions to be well-placed. For anyone who only gets to see the superficial Dean, "the cool way" could mean burped out, or done in underarm fart noises, or even "A is for Asshole, B is for Boobs...." But Sam remembers afternoons spent practicing their codes and signals, Morse and Semaphore and the cyphers Dad taught them, as well as the ones they made up to communicate secretly. He remembers the spelling unit Dean failed because he spelled everything with radio calls instead of plain letters. He's pretty sure "the cool way" means only one thing.

So he's not surprised when Dean rattles off every phoneme from Alpha to Zulu. By Charlie, Sam's reciting them too.

It really does impress the kids, too. Even the ones who'd been afraid of the "Giant" are now looking up at him in awe because of the stereo effect.

"Okay, now we really gotta go," Dean says to them. With a reassuring nod at Janine, he disentangles himself from the rugrats one last time.

"Kids, let's say goodbye, now."

"Goodbye, Mr. Dean!" one of the kids says, then they're all saying it. A few of them add, "Goodbye, Mr. Sammy," so Sam doesn't feel too left out. As soon as they've all said their goodbyes, Janine takes the wheel again.

"Okay, now, it's time for music!" she supplies brightly to distract the kids and let Sam and Dean make their exit. "Who wants to play the xylophone today?"

"X-ray, Yankee, Lima, Oscar...." Dean mutters as they walk out of the room. A few of the kids wave anyway, watching them retreat. Dean waves back.

They stand in the hallway. Dean eventually wipes the grin off his face. "Man, kids are great, aren't they? Hey, did you get it?"

Sam nods. "We'll finish up tonight when the school's empty."

Dean slaps him on the shoulder. "Didn't want to burn the place down with little ankle-biters inside, huh? Good thinking, Sammy." He starts down the corridor, still buoyant. "C'mon, let's get lunch. I'm starving. For some reason I'm craving grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup." He shakes his head. "Wow. Kids are really great, huh?"

Sam stretches his legs to catch up. He'll tell Dean about the murdered child later.


End file.
